#I've been here for so long. They would have to get to Musk's Twitter level of self-destruction-- past that actually for me to leave

[akuma-homura]

...honestly, people aren't wrong about the whole '>backlash >whoops! sorry, we didn't mean it like THAT!' thing being a usual song and dance for companies including tumblr, and I even did mention it in the tags of... one of the related posts...

I was still surprised they bothered responding so early, but. ...yeah, I guess we'll just have to see. The whole "Outdated" wording was extremely worrisome, so...

#[ ;text ] #if I AM being real? I likely won't leave tumblr even if they did do bad changes to the Following feed #I've been here for so long. They would have to get to Musk's Twitter level of self-destruction-- past that actually for me to leave #twitter I don't have attachment to. tumblr I do. #which perhaps is stupid. it's a social media. #but. #...idk i already said moving places is exhausting #I'm already at other places #and if I gravitate more towards them naturally bc of tumblr making a shitty choice and less enjoyable while the other place feels better-- #--then. like. i guess so be it there. but. #shrugs #gonna be real my main thought is just being on dreamwidth WHEEZES #i have a pillowfort but no one I know is on it actively so I don't have a connected feeling towards it and... tend to forget to update my #- art account there for months on end... #inkblot just feels bad design-wise right now #plurk is the most likely candidate alongside dreamwidth. funnily. so. #also of course discord but i don't really count that as much #oh yeah. my neocities sites too.

[leafdebrief]

Hi friends 👋

This is mostly a message for people on/from Twitter, and for me to repost as a link over there. Tumblr does long-form better and I can't think of any other way to communicate this effectively without a lot of writing, so here's the deal.

I'm getting close to finished compiling the various things I need to send for my pre-2023 mail people (yes, I am still doing this because I collect first and send when everything is perfect) and tying up a lot of loose projects. There's still a lot of work to do but with the time I've been not tweeting, I've been painting, soldering, building, videoing and editing my busy little hands away in preparation for surprises to come. BUT—

I need to get even more serious now. Or at least as serious as someone like myself can muster.

Right now, for me that means laying out my Grand Plan for this year on this post and then getting right to it. I'm addressing the Twitter fam directly because for you, dear friends, that will kinda mean I won't be on Twitter that much anymore. Really this time.

Yeah yeah, I know. We all threw up our arms and threatened to leave umpteen times, and then we all settled to stick around to watch it all burn, and for a while I was satisfied with that pace. It was fun watching the fire.

But the fire has already been reduced to embers.

Now it just feels like standing in front of a smouldering pile of garbage and gleefully inhaling its toxic fumes.

For the last few months, Twitter has slowly but very steadily been silencing the people I want to talk to—in a number of different ways—or outright making them disappear from me. Or worse still, replacing them. With what?

Antivaxxer

Antivaxxer

Transphobe

Elon Musk

Climate change denier

Literal nazi

Elon Musk

Antivaxxer

Everything I see everywhere in this place and now in my life is telling me in no uncertain terms: "mobilize now".

Bad actors are already mobile. The pandemic created an opportunity for our collective horseshit to fester, and now it is very commonplace to see people who publicly—and often violently—act out their racist, phobic, misogynist agendas in the real world. Stuff that nobody would dream of saying out loud 10 years ago for fear of getting punched are now everywhere I look. Nazis used be a Not Cool thing.

But people are literally dying.

I've been trying my level best to stick around and keep up morale on behalf of those who are being actively targeted, but then the shooting at start of the Lunar New Year gave me a shake. Once again, the target is people who look like the person I love most in the world. Her whole family. All of the people in my life that I hold dear, in fact, are targets in one way or another.

The funny thing is, violent extremism isn't even the worst threat we're facing. The walls are closing in from every direction: unfettered spread of deadly viruses is past the point of fixing, and ecological collapse the likes of which our civilization has not ever seen will happen in the next 10 years.

Does that mean I'm giving up the fight to go take care of myself and mine?

Don't be absurd. I'm just angrier.

Lucky for me and nobody else, the coping mechanism I developed for my anger in my 20s is doing everything faster. Like, way faster. More aggressively too.

But I need to focus and organize my efforts a bit better so I can start doing things out in the Real World™. The good news is that I already started preparing for this months ago and have a headstart now.

Basically, I think what I need to do is integrate all my various battles into one ongoing project/series/lifestyle, so I can just always be working towards those various goals while still creating content that can use any platform available to spread reach and find new ways to fix things.

Here's the plan:

Tour de'Brief is happening for real. I will be touching more grass this year, in different cities, to visit the various dispensaries I've become close with and talk with locals about local issues (keeping myself and others as safe from disease as possible naturally). Why?

Well for starters, it's the disposable thing again! I will be personally trying to make storeowners commit to getting rid of theirs, in exchange for an LD-exclusive battery recycling bin (to be sent to me for collection) and a bunch of assorted creations for all their employees. Yeah, I made stuff. Lots of it.

Twitter presence will ramp down to a mostly communicative one: announce things posted on other platforms, coordinate things with people, answer questions, and probably Spaces. Maybe the odd shitpost here and there, but I'll be draining my drafts folder for the foreseeable future. Does that mean... no more content??

Actually, no, it means NEW content—I'm going back into the YouTubes! Going full production mode, even more content hopefully. Big ambitious videos with all our friends, collaborations with musicians.. and Twitter hanging around in my back pocket to connect with those collaborators. I am turning into a television set.

Tumblr will still work for long-form writing, but also with more focus on showcasing finished works (paintings, trays, electronics, etc). There's lots of stuff to show now since I've been saving it up.

The podcast! (Wait, what??) That's right, I'm booting it back up! The format will be more guest-based since I have all you great pals to talk to now.

That mailing list! Once I'm done with friendmail, I'm going to just start randomly sending you shit, as was my original plan. #FreeDrugs is forever!!!

What I need most right now is a way to cover more ground. The way I've decided to achieve that is by being a pest, so.. the usual really, but much more personal this time around. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar though, so I'll be needing lots of time to make bad creations that will hopefully entice a store of people to temporarily tolerate my presence.

If this sounds like a bad plan, it might very well be. But stick with me here—

My thought is that I can use the opportunity presented by fighting my climate battle to shoehorn in whatever other missions need attention depending on the geographical area. Different places have different problems; I need to learn about how each community tackles them, if at all, and gather context.. read the vibes... then break shit!

Figuratively that is.

Of course there will be plenty of literal breakages, and that's part of the fun!

I am preparing for the world to look very different, and very Not Good, in the coming 5-10 years—the extent to which is not clear to me yet. I would be narcissistic and delusional to think I am going to save the world by collecting batteries from pot shops and arguing with the locals, but I need to do everything.. anything.. that I can, all at once preferably, while trying to expand my reach organically by essentially docu-series-ing the next year as it happens.

It's gonna be wild itellyouwhat.

This Friday we'll have a good bash before I quiet down the Twitter presence indefinitely, but I want to still be reachable and connect with the people I met there. It's a hard line to draw. There will be lots of mail goes back and forth though, so I'll still be retweeting and replying whenever possible.

If Spaces disappears, I have an entire mailing list of friends—digitally now!—and the means to operate outside of Twitter in a variety of different ways. We will continue to connect digitally until I make it to your hometown, and until then I will continue to mail things to anyone on that list... you're helping to make my video content, see?

We always make the greatest team.

#leaf debrief